


Vislumbrar el Sol

by Rueslan



Category: Vampire: The Masquerade
Genre: "Why Can't More Horrors Be Love Stories... They Mix Divine--", 1970s Child Attachment Therapy, Attempted Suicide, Bondage and Confinement, Bullying, Confusing, Cruelty, Discussions of Murder, F/M, I'm Probably Missing Something, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Insanity, JUST, Kidnapping, Lore Noncompliance, M/M, Past rape/noncon, Suicide, Temporary Character Death, Trauma, Traumatic Backstories, Traumatic Potential Futures, Triggery AF, dubcon, no, ok, temporal dislocation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-21 14:05:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12459321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rueslan/pseuds/Rueslan
Summary: Simon wants to see. Wants to know.Everything.Always.





	1. Chapter 1

_"Nuh-n-,"_ Julius tries, but the denial fractures on his tongue. Shatters. Spills. 

And, when put back together again, it makes the wrong shape in Simon's mind. 

_Liar._

"Yes!" Simon insists. He shoves the man backwards. Julius stumbles, arms outstretched for balance. He's nearly found it when a second shove propels him into the fence. 

" _Yes!_ "

Julius catches himself on the wires but has no time to right himself before Simon does it for him, gripping his throat and hauling him upright, " _YES!_ "

Their faces are now on a level even though Julius is shorter by inches. The informant's feet are not in contact with the ground as much as he might prefer.

"You drank the tea," Simon reminds him, "It made you sick."

Julius's eyes flicker in recognition. He sputters. "W-wh-wha-- h-how--"

Simon shakes him. The fence rattles. Julius goes limp, eyes closing in pain from the pressure and the weight on his spine.

"Do not lie, little Caesar. He bought you for two quarters and some company."

_And you were so, so embarrassed._

And scared. Scared that the Hatter might leave in disgust after a combination of nerves and an inability to digest the cheap tea caused Julius's stomach to rebel all over their table in that tiny, antiquated diner. 

The Hatter hadn't left, but he'd been a cheap and inconsiderate date.

Hardly worth dying for. 

"Puh-puh- puh-puh-please, I-I- I- I duh-don-d-dinon't know!" Julius clutches at Simon's forearm, trying to ease the pressure on his neck. "I di- I din- I didn't me-me-me- I didn't mean to." The harder Julius tries the more the words slip and stutter and trip.

Simon watches. He feels tired. Distant. 

Irritated. 

Not at the broken words. Not even at the broken man struggling so desperately to sound them out.

"I d- I dunon't uh-uhn-uh--"

_Understand._

_("I don't understand what I am")._

Simon releases him. Julius slides to the ground, one hand raised to his throat and the other held palm-out. Defensive. Pleading. The gesture speaks for him, saying _'Wait, wait--'_

"I-I- I didi- I didn't know!"

_No. Of course not._

"I believe you."

Julius stares at him, wide-eyed and waiting. He must hear the heavy tone which gives the words a darker meaning: the unspoken: _'and it doesn't matter,'_ but he won't acknowledge it. He doesn't want to understand. 

Simon is sure that Julius is telling the truth. He'd spoken with Lily. With E. Even with that sad, deluded dreamer who called himself Copper. None of them knew enough. 

Was it worth a crack in the mask to cast them out, to keep them ignorant? 

_"They are dangerous,"_ said the Camarilla, and had them exiled. And then, through that exile, they became a liability. 

_Foolish, foolish._

More sensible to make a place for them.

Or to kill them at conception. 

Why wait? Why make excuses? The Camarilla left them stumbling blind and then said _'your fault'_ when they finally fell. As cruel as Simon accepts this reality to be, that hypocrisy still annoys him. 

He pushes those feelings aside. This ending has been predetermined. It is much, much too late for the Hatter-Chatter 

"There is a heavy price," Simon tells him. 

Julius says _'Please.'_ Says that he's sorry. 

Says that he'll never do it again. 

"You won't," Simon agrees. Raising a hand to his own throat, he uses a jutted-out thumb to mime a slitting motion. "Never-ever." 

Julius panics, head shaking in denial, his shoes scuffing sand as he propels himself deeper into the metal net. 

"Nuh-nuh nuh- nuh-no--" 

He has an arm over his face. His eyes. It is as if he thinks hiding from the sight of his executioner is the same as hiding from the fact of his execution. He looks quite small like that. Wide-shouldered but hunched. Thin. Ribs visible through the thin white fabric of his shirt. 

"Sshh," says Simon, "Shh. Shush. The action is mandated by our blood." He kneels, taking Julius by the wrists and exposing his face. "I will bring the silence quickly," he promises, with as much sympathy as he can manage. It's what passes for kindness among their kind.

Except that Julius isn't. 

Not entirely. 

"Puh-puh-please." His knees are drawn to his chest in a final, instinctive, and entirely futile form of defense. "F-fi-find your heart," he pleads. Meaning it. Genuinely believing that Simon might still have one. 

Not knowing any better.

_Not kin._

_Not kine._

Julius stares up at him from an unsettling in-between.

Simon hesitates. Julius finds a heartbeat of hope in the silence. It isn't a metaphor. Simon hears it. Once. Twice.

Curious. Confusing. 

It isn't half so strange as what Simon sees next. 

Julius waits. Oblivious. He does not know that time has become confused again. Uncomprehending, he regards Simon through the bright haze of a moment which hasn't happened yet.

**\- - -[x] {x} [x]- - -**

Two days pass.

"I almost forgot," explains Simon, citing a god's most twisted gift. Forgetfulness allows for all sorts of fun. 

Also many varieties of not-fun. 

The difference? Often a matter of perspective. 

It is also why Simon, investigating a faint scuffling sound from the apartment's disused bathroom, is momentarily surprised to find his guest. 

Julius does not answer. He looks like someone who would very much prefer to remain forgotten.

He was not so silent two nights earlier, out in the open streets. 

_"Quiet,"_ Simon had said then. He said it again, twice, before he understood that telling wasn't enough. 

He'd stopped. Pulled Julius around to face him. 

_"Crying won't help,"_ he reminded him. The words were shaped by a lingering regret. He vaguely recalled a time when he'd wanted to be wrong.

Julius wouldn't meet his gaze. Then, as now, he'd kept his head down, frightened eyes never rising higher than Simon's chest. 

_"I-I'm n-not,"_ he'd objected. Shaking shoulders pulled closer, sharply curved angles appearing like the scapulae of truncated wings. _"I h-haven't said anything."_

Lying. 

_No?_

Mistaken. Julius didn't know that every line of his posture, every nuance of his expression, was a call for help that wouldn't come. Couldn't come.

Simon shrugged out of his jacket. He swung it around Julius's shoulders and began fastening the buttons shut, not bothering about the sleeves. Under his hands Julius's chest rose and fell, each dip coming fast and shallow. He didn't breathe like someone doing it for appearances. He breathed as if he'd forgotten that he didn't need to. 

Simon gripped Julius's chin and, gently but inexorably, turned his head to the side. 

The sidewalks were inhabited by a thin stream of pre-dawn pedestrians looking for home, their next paycheck, or the prospect of another fix. 

_"They hear you,"_ said Simon, _"they see you."_ He waited until he was sure Julius had seen it too, and then confirmed: _"...and then they look through."_

Blank faces. Averted eyes. 

_Fear._

Simon turned Julius to face him again. He examined eyes which had become hollow.

Julius remained silent for the rest of the journey. 

He remains that way now, too.

Simon crouches in front of him. Julius's only response is to press himself harder against the tile walls as if hoping they'll offer an escape. 

They won't. Walls don't do that. Simon knows. Not the walls in bathrooms, closets, or even wardrobes. There are no lamposts or lions to find.

Walls don't care. 

This time Julius's eyes don't dart away when Simon lifts his chin. They're glazed over. Unfocused. Unseeing. 

_Hungry._

Simon, glancing down at a slack jaw and prominent fangs, acknowledges that he's been a very, very neglectful host. There's a spare bloodpack in the fridge, but...

After a moment's thought he rolls up his sleeve instead. He digs a sharp nail into the skin of his forearm and draws a short, deep line of red. 

Julius flinches away from the offering. 

Simon can tolerate the rejection. He knows about the monsters. The ones inside. Behind his eyes. In his blood.

It is understandable that Julius should not want that company. 

_Still._

"One drink," he murmurs, drawing the most coaxing tone he can manage from vocal chords gone rough with disuse, "once will not bind you. Will not break you."

He grips Julius's jaw with his spare hand and lifts his other arm. Encouragement. Coercion? Whichever it is, whichever Julius perceives, it works. 

Simon observes for a while, fingers idly exploring the planes and angles of a face which won't, can't, withdraw from him.

Not now. 

But would if it could. 

_Should_ if it could. 

_Run away,_ he thinks, _run, run, run._

He leans close. "A last meal," he whispers. A joke. A warning. Pity and mockery tangled together, one as useless as the other.

Julius chokes. 

Simon laughs. He withdraws his arm, ignoring the blood which seeps backwards into the slowly closing wound. 

Julius's eyes dart across every space which is not occupied by Simon. He dives towards the largest gap. 

Simon swats him to the ground mid-lunge. Julius lands chest-first with a thud, chin cracking tile a split-second later. A pained moan indicates that the damage to the tilework is at least partially mutual. 

"The effort is excellent." 

_But it is not enough._

Simon stands, pulling Julius along. He pushes him against the wall and pins him there with the whole of his own form pressed against the man's back. 

Julius shakes his head. His words echo the gesture: a litany of _"N-no, nono,"_ and _"Not h-here."_ An emphasis on that last word catches Simon's attention. 

He leans closer, ignoring an answering shudder, and slants a sidelong look at the man's face. Julius's eyes are directed at the wall, but it takes no extra senses to understand that he is not seeing it. 

"...But you are not here."

Simon looks in the direction Julius is looking. Terror takes a shape. It is as real and as insubstantial as a hallucinator's shapeshifting reality. Simon strains to find a form in it; to find that particular kind of "true" which can be labeled and painted by the mind's eye. 

The floor quivers. Rattles. Wheels below, unseen, traversing a rough road. 

_Yes._

A bright expanse of harsh red desert bleeds heat through the thin aluminum walls of a shuttered RV. 

For a moment Simon looks through eyes that aren't his and sees the red welts ringing shackled hands. He remembers what it was like to be thirsty, thirstier than he himself has ever been in any life he remembers. A thirst which rivals _the_ Thirst. Mouth dry. Tongue swollen. Dying from it.

The vehicle swerves. Sways. Thunk. Head lolling back against the wall. Exhaustion, not choice. Blurred vision fixates on the sink. A cruel joke. A persistent taunt: always there, just out of reach. 

Gravel crunches under worn tiles. The RV rolls to a stop. A door clacks open and shut.

The dim world becomes darker. 

_(Eyes shut tight. Shaking. Body hunched around a pounding heart)._

_(A heartbeat loud enough to wake the dead)._

And it might. 

The vampiress sleeps in the cab while her ghoul drives. 

And then at night, sometimes, when they are both awake, when the shackles come off and they--

_"S-stop!"_

Aversion to the memory hits Simon like a wave of nausea. Both he and Julius are driven into a gut-wrenching moment between _now_ and _then._

Something remains. Some connection. Simon gropes after it, clinging to the unfinished thread as it stretches. Parts. The vision crumbles like a dream and leaves him in the maddeningly persistent illusion of his present time.

He extracts his fangs from the neck in front of him. Closes a mouth which he does not remember opening. They are seated on the floor. Julius is clutched to his chest. Struggling. Panicked. Abortive motions oscillate between the consequences of compliance and fear of the possible punishments for resistance. 

"Duh--d-- don't," Terror still leaks from images which have only faded for one of them.

Julius does not know where he is. 

Does not know _when_ he is.

"So beautiful," Simon remembers in words that aren't his, because it's been decades since he thought of anyone or anything as beautiful, "She sang like an angel."

_And took you to hell._

Julius's mind screams under the stress, begging for relief from memories so close that Simon can taste the blood from a split lip and feel the choking constriction of lungs clenched as tight as fists. 

But Simon wants...

_More._

Wants to see. Wants to know. 

Everything.

Always. 

But the connection is broken and Julius's mind seems dangerously close to doing the same. 

Simon manages, with great difficulty, to restrain his morbid curiosity. 

"Hush," he soothes, "No more. We're done."

_For now._

Julius does not respond. Does not believe. 

_(Already knows about soft tones and false sympathy)._

The Malkavain stands. He pulls Julius out of the bathroom and, with much more difficulty, out of the past. 

Julius goes as directed. He doesn't resist when Simon hooks the chair away from the desk and lowers him into it.

Simon kneels into his line of sight, resting a hand on Julius's knee. It's meant as a gesture of comfort, one which he dimly remembers from another life, but Julius stiffens immediately.

_(Pressure behind the left knee; a grip gone soft and far, far more terrible than the usual abuse)._

She didn't let the ghoul hit him. Not there. Not then. 

_(His head in Her lap, cold fingers stroking at his hairline)._

He'd known those caresses for what they were. Craved them anyway. Struggled to endure anything. Everything. Because she...

"She isn't here." Simon tilts his head. He isn't sure if the information is a kindness or a cruelty. He isn't sure that Julius, in this state, knows the difference. "Look at me."

Julius does. Sees him. Sees Her, too.

Simon does not like wearing a part of someone else's face. It itches. He smiles anyway and hopes that, this time, the monsters behind his eyes will remain hidden. 

"I don't want to hurt you, little Caesar."

It is true. Despite Julius's confusion, Simon isn't Her. Julius's pain is entirely incidental to him.

"I don't need to hurt you." A half truth.

"It doesn't have to hurt."

_(...Liar)._


	2. Chapter 2

On the beach in Santa Monica, wavelets lapped at the shoreline. They were illuminated only by the hazy moonlight. 

Simon continued to stared at Julius, who wasn't.

Carefully, oh, so carefully, he'd reached out to touch. His own hand remained in shadow. 

He could see the light reflected between his fingers. He felt, just for a moment, a natural warmth which was entirely unnatural to them both.

Then it faded.

Simon wanted it back. It was too improbable. Too interesting. 

_"Show me,"_ he'd demanded. He grasped Julius's head between his hands, ignoring the frightened noise of protest, and tilted the man's head back to search his eyes for the last vanishing gleam. _"Show me again."_

But Julius wouldn't. 

Julius couldn't.

**\- - -[x] {x} [x]- - -**

Julius and Simon reach an understanding. If Julius is entirely incapacitated and incapable of leaving the apartment, then Simon will trust him to stay voluntarily.

It seems more civil that way. 

_"I d-dunon't--"_

_"Don't."_

Julius had stopped. Swallowed. Nodded, eyes flitting away from Simon's unrelenting stare. That wasn't what Simon meant. 

_"You don't what?"_

Julius shook his head. Hours passed before he finally answered. The answer came in other circumstances, Julius twisting under Simon's touch when the scrutiny became unbearable.

_"I d-d-- dunon't n-n-know what y-you want f-f-from me!"_

Simon tries to remember. 

It isn't always easy. 

He sits next to his captive and watches, waiting, eyes fixed while the thoughts behind them scatter and jump and roll in a hundred directions. 

Several nights have drifted by. They were not considerate enough to hand out any further revelations on their way past. Within Simon's perceptions (and Julius is, as often as the BadAnnoying Blond-Man's politics don't demand otherwise, Simon's sole focal point) Julius remains stubbornly rooted in the _now._

Simon broods over a situation which has begun to seem pointless. 

Rain coats the windows. The downpour is a muted background roar offset by an irrepressable drip from the kitchen faucet. The sound finally penetrates Simon's focus. He stands, abruptly irritated, and savagely twists the faucet's knob. It creaks ominously, threatening to break. The drip continues. 

Julius stirs. Simon glances back at him. For once the man meets his eyes without prompting. It only lasts a second. 

"I c-c--- c-can f-fuh-- fuh-fix..." he gestures. The cuff links rattle and scrape at the radiator.

**\- - - [x] {x} [x] - - -**

_Drip-drip-drip--_

Silence. 

Julius straightens and wipes his hands on his jeans. He glances at Simon, eyes unguarded for a moment, mouth edged by an uncertain smile. It dies when he catches Simon's gaze. He looks away, rubbing at the marks on his wrist. 

"I u-used t-t- t-to fuh-fix... b-before." The kitchen counter is littered with materials and makeshift tools which he'd scrounged from around the apartment. Julius begins to absent-mindedly reorder them. 

The muted rain seems very loud. 

"A-are y-you going to k- k-k kill me?" Julius asks. Julius, deceptively calm with his back turned and his hands clutching the edge of the counter, "I d-duh-duh d-don't... I d-duh-duh-don't w-want t-to d-die."

The dripping sink is replaced by the faint, distant, maddeningly irregular beat of a heart which shouldn't be happening. 

Julius, twice over, isn't anything like as dead as he ought to be. 

_Am I?_ Simon wonders. He examines the puzzle. The person. 

What happens to a puzzle once it's solved?

Or, for that matter, not solved?

Boxed on a shelf? Given away? Thrown in the trash? Set on fire?

It probably isn't supposed to fix faucets. Or talk. 

Julius is simultaneously unsolvable and, annoyingly, sentient. 

_(Talkative. Trusting. Foolish)._

Unbearable. 

The decision is made. Simon hauls Julius to the door and pushes him out onto the landing. He sees, just for a moment, the lost look in the man's eyes: the bewildered expression of any abandoned creature left by the side of the road. 

"Unless you would prefer to remain," says Simon. He makes the not-invitation with the worst of his monsters exposed: pulling the lines of his face into a forecast of pain.

Julius stumbles back. The cobweb connecting them snaps. He half-runs, half falls down the stairs and out into the night. 

Simon stands in the doorway for a moment. He feels the apartment looming at his back like the dry, dusty interior of a skeletal maw. Empty. Gloomy. 

A boring disappointment.

**\- - - [x] {x} [x] - - -**

Julius runs.

He'd fled down the stairs from the landing, propelled by a moment where he'd been sure that the vampire would change his mind. Snatch him back. Kill him. 

He could swear he'd felt something crash into him from behind when he turned away, but then he was down the stairs and out the door. 

The rain closed in around him like an obscuring curtain, close and claustrophobic and full of vague shapes.

Too spooked to pick his rout carefully, he'd run in the direction which he thought Rosa had taken on her way out of town. Within moments he was hopelessly lost. When he reached Griffith park he realized he'd gone terribly wrong, but he did not immediately realize just how fatal of a mistake he'd made. 

Now Julius crashes into the underbrush of a thicket where he'd hoped to take cover. 

No chance. 

He strains to hear his pursuers over the sounds of his own clumsy progress and the ringing tension in his ears. He can't. Sleek forms and padded paws, coupled with the ability to leap twice their own length without missing a pace, keep them eerily silent. 

Until one of them howls.

The sound hits his back like a physical force and drives him forward with renewed panic. Maybe that is why they do it. The joy of the chase is half the fun. Worth prolonging. 

Julius tries to see a way out. He has a chance. He must. There are safe city streets ahead, places they won't follow. Not far. Not for long. Not without attracting attention which is as dangerous to them as they are to him. 

Then he trips. Detritus hides a hollow between two roots, unsuspected until his foot finds it. He's nearly sent sprawling. He catches himself, but when his foot takes his weight the pain is blinding. He tries to stumble forward anyway. Each step deepens the agony. Exhaustion and pain curl tighter around his mind with every agonizing step. They tug at his frantic half-thoughts. Twist them. 

Asking: _'Why?'_

Her face is an impression in the back of his mind, nothing like a memory in this moment, only a barely-conscious weight dragging him back.

_"So beautiful."_

_"She sang like an angel."_

And Him.

And. 

The eyes of strangers walking those streets in Santa Monica, carefully peering through him, saying _"Not worth it."_

Julius continues to stagger forward but the determined desperation falls away from him. It takes the adrenaline-fueled strength along with it, both sinking under the anesthesia of despair.

They resurface later, when the claws catch him. When it is too late. When there is nothing except pain left for them to accompany. 

The pack takes their time. Werewolves are not known for their restraint, but they do their best to make the night's entertainment last. They are, on the whole, much more successful than he'd prefer.

Shortly after he loses the ability to scream, but a considerably long time after he started, Julius dies. 

And doesn't, because when the experience ends he's falling forward into a familiar grip. His mouth is bleeding, lip punctured by fangs. His, he thinks at first, before realizing otherwise. The rest of him is entirely intact.

He'd never made it down the stairs. 

They can both remember now. The monsters in Simon's eyes were too close to the surface. Too awake. Too real. They saw Julius's turned back and felt the emptiness looming behind and they said _no._ Refusing.

Simon caught Julius at the edge of the landing and spun him around. He bit the inside of his own mouth bloody before sinking his fangs deep into Julius's lower lip. 

Blood mingled. Time became confused again. It had sent them crawling down the wrong strand of _maybe._

One which had ended quite abruptly.

"I do not think you should go to Griffith's park," Simon offers after a moment's silence. 

Julius stares at the striped walls and the potted plant and the gold lettering on the open door of apartment 508.

Then he throws up.

**\- - -[x] {x} [x]- - -**

Julius is more cautious next time. Waiting. Watching. Planning. He searches for a safer rout to freedom.

A hunter finds him first. 

_”In here,”_ she says, and he follows a friendly, concerned voice into an old barber's shop with boarded-up windows.

She is middle-aged and smiling. She has short, curly red-blond hair and a set of angel earrings. She looks like someone's mother. 

_”Did you know barber's used to bleed people?”_ she asks, while he tries to pull the stake out of his abdomen. _“Makes you wonder, doesn't it?”_

He tries to tell her that he isn't a killer. That he doesn't want to hurt anyone. That he's sorry. 

Because there must be something to be sorry for. There must be. Mustn't there?

_"Oh, honey, no,”_ she says. Laughing. _”It's just a job,"_ she says, while she makes it more than that. 

_"Nothing personal,"_ she says, with her hand on his blistering cheek.

_Because you're not a person._

Her eyes say it for her. They look at him. Through him. They smile while he burns.

**\- - -[x] {x} [x]- - -**

In a moment which isn't happening, Julius remembers what did not happen.

There's no clarity to accompany the understanding. Like in a dream, every moment becomes it's own self-justifying reality. 

This time he's quicker, not crouching in shadows until a careless mistake gets him seen.

He's careful not to attract attention by running, either, not until he's deep under the city streets. He evades the hostile Nosferatu, protective of their territory and inclined to despise any offspring of the toreador in particular, but he's avoided them and now he thinks maybe, _maybe._

But the hunger has him. He's staggering, starving, his rationality slipping towards the red in waves which come and go with increasing frequency. 

Then, improbably, there are strangers. They wait ahead of him. Call out to him. He tenses. Knows that he should run. But...

Blood. Sharp. Sweet. He can smell it.

_“Kin or cattle?”_ someone asks. 

_“Not quite either,”_ someone else answers. 

A pale, claw-tipped hand is held out to him. It drips with the blood of something small, furry, and lacking a head. 

_"Come,"_ says the voice behind the hand, coaxing and cut with undertones of barely-suppressed laughter, _"eat."_

The animal's body hits the sewer's grated walkway with a sad, wet thump. Julius buckles, legs refusing the order to run. 

He hears the danger in their laughter. They know he does. They want him to. They want to watch him cower and struggle against instincts he can't suppress. 

The freshly killed corpse is canine. A dog. Small. Pitiful. Broken. Part of him recoils. The rest of him _needs._

He bites. Horror and relief blanket his senses. He feels the hands on him. Can't care, not until the corpse is drained. He clings to it, desperate for more, until he feels the first bone break. 

Julius screams, and there's another blinding crack of white-hot _pain._

Waves of hunger return with renewed desperation as his body attempts to use the meager influx of blood to heal broken arms which have been bound in impossible positions. He barely feels the bloody collar latching around his neck. An afterthought. A joke. The cheerful jingle of the name-tag makes an incongruous counterpoint to the pain. 

Like the werewolves, the sabbat try not to kill their guests too quickly. 

They are, unfortunately, much better at it.

**\- - -[x] {x} [x]- - -**

"How is this happening?" Julius asks. His head is clutched in his hands, fingers dug deep as he tries to tear the new memories free.

They hadn't shared blood again, but the visions persist. Simon is silent, looking out at the neon glow of empty streets. 

_Because it can._

_Because it already has._

_Because everything is true._

Simon's fingers twitch with the impulse to reach out and offer some parody of comfort. He refuses. 

It would be a lie. 

He hates lies. 

Simon leaves instead, missing the choked-off attempt to call him back. 

It would never occur to him that his presence might be preferable to his absence.

**\- - - [x] {x} [x] - - -**

Werewolves. Again.

This time Julius does not even bother to run.

**\- - - [x] {x} [x] - - -**

Simon returns in the early night.

He finds Julius lying motionless on the bed, turned away towards the window with his arms tucked under him. From this angle the manacles are as invisible as they are unnecessary. Julius no longer seems inclined to leave. 

Simon pauses to take a blood pack from the fridge. He leans over Julius, one knee on the bed and pack in hand, but pauses when he gets a clearer look at his guest. 

“Y-you c-c- cuh-came b-back,” says Julius. He doesn't look at Simon. “I d-duh-didn't know if..." Not accusing. Not complaining. It's a simple, tired statement of fact. 

Simon sets the blood pack down. He takes Julius by his mostly intact shoulder and turns him onto his back. He surveys the damage. 

His eyes flicker to the boarded-up windows. He finds the crack, now visible only by the faint glow of neon signs, where the boards were pulled away and then pushed, imperfectly, back into position. 

“I c-c-couldn't,” Julius says. The calm in his voice is betrayed by the fractures, hairline cracks in a structure on the verge of collapse. 

“I-it t-took s-ss-so long and I c—couldn't--” his voice gives out, but Simon can read the rest of the story written, only half-healed, across Julius's skin. The left side of his face is a corrupted mask of red blisters. The eye is a milk-white wreck, blood crusted on his lower lid. Simon carefully pulls Julius's arms away from his chest and the finds the hand that he'd used to pry the boards free.

Nails missing. Flesh exposed. The steel cuff is lightly embedded in the skin of a wrist which has tried to re-form around it. 

Simon helps Julius to sit and proffers the blood. 

Julius looks at it. Looks sick. 

_Not kin,_ Simon remembers. _Not kine._

He cuts the package and lets the smell do its work. Julius's fangs extend as need drives him to acceptance. The deflated package drops to the bed and, slowly, painfully, Julius's skin begins to creep back across closing wounds. 

Simon undoes the cuff before it can become a permanent fixture. 

Julius's eyes close. When they open again the left iris has returned to a clear, sad gray. “N-not like th-that,” he whispers, voice shaking, “I d-duh-don't want t-to d-duh-die like th-that. I c-can't--”

Simon knows that he isn't talking about the sunlight. Knows which visions drove him to this. 

Julius still looks drained. Simon shifts, about to stand and retrieve a second pack. Julius catches his sleeve. It's a barely-there grip, light as a cobweb, but sometimes the most binding moments are the ones which are the easiest to break. Simon doesn't move. 

Julius does, curling forward into him. His head rests heavily against his arm. Vertebrae of the neck exposed. Delicate connections open and breakable between skull and shoulder blades. Simon looks down, hand twitching with an impulse which has become too familiar. 

Before he can decide, Julius speaks. “Nnnn-no more.”

Shaking. 

_(Fingers full of splinters clutched tight around the board's edge while the direct sunlight ate away at them like acid)._

_(Terrified of the action)._

_(Terrified of not taking it)._

Resolve slipping away as the pain mounted to agony and his mind skipped ahead to ask him how long he'd lie there, peeling away layer by layer, until the damage was enough to end him.

He'd kicked the boards back into place. Blocked the light. Plunged himself back into the hollow horror of temporary salvation.

Simon tries to remember what was so special about the vision of sunlight. Why it mattered so much. At some point, while he was looking in another direction, that obsession had died of its own accord. 

“No more,” he agrees. 

Julius is still for a moment. Then, “Nn-no more.” The echo isn't a confirmation. Something else. Something more. Julius's eyes are open and fixed on some internal struggle which lies tangled outside of Simon's perceptions. 

Julius pulls back, eyes closing against the conclusion. When he opens them again they are wild and desperate with a resolution which Simon can't read. 

“Please,” he says. He takes the Malkavian's claw-tipped hand and laces it against his throat, asking a monster to do the kindest thing it is capable of. 

Make it quick. 

Simon considers the request. "You've done this before."

Julius's answer is a barely-perceptible nod.

Yes. 

Bottles on the tray fastened to the sink, abandoned when his sire's blood became her ghoul's only addiction.

They lay out of reach for manacled hands, but one desperate day Julius had managed anyway, contorting exhausted limbs and kicking the tray to the floor. 

_(Cap coming off. Pills scattering)._

_(Mouth dry, struggling to swallow. Bitter contents coating his mouth, throat, creeping into his nasal passages until they were all he could smell or taste)._

They found him at the edge. The ghoul woke her up. And she.

_Raged._

Barely aware of anything, numb and heavy at the edge of peace, Julius still heard her. He'd felt her fury. 

Didn't feel the fangs. 

He never remembered the warm liquid mingling with the bitter taste in his mouth except from now, looking back as a voyeur to his own death. 

No. This wasn't the first time that Julius had looked to the unknown for mercy. 

“Nn-nn-not my puh-pain that y-you--”

Simon finally lets himself touch, fingers closing lightly where Julius had placed them. Julius's hand is still tense and shaking over his own, but he doesn't match the pressure. He keeps his palm open. Loose. Holding, not clutching. 

“Shhh.. shush.” Soothing. He pries Julius's hand away. 

Julius responds as conditioned, tired mind slipping into that illusion of a safe space. The one She'd created. The only one which she had ever allowed him.

Julius shifts. Closer. 

“J-just--”

He struggles with words which won't come. 

He finds a way to ask without them.


	3. Chapter 3

Simon dislikes wearing someone else's face. It itches. He can feel the ugly inside of Her pretty skin clinging to him while Julius kisses the mask. 

The man's movements are clumsy. Graceless. Artless. 

Real. 

Simon stops him with a hand against his throat, pushing him back to arms length. He holds him there and just. Looks. 

Julius makes a choked noise. It resonates against Simon's hand. The man looks aside. Down. Afraid, but not because of the obvious. Something else. Something ludicrous. 

Shame. 

_(A lifetime of rejection)._

_(A lifetime of not being enough)._

Here, now? Like a fly apologizing to a spider. 

Simon puts his hand on Julius's thigh. Scrapes his teeth across the man's neck. Not to draw blood, but only to test. Tease. To hear the reaction: heartbeat twitching in the twin memories of  
terror and arousal. 

For once Simon is not tempted to look in that other direction. He remains in the present. 

He wonders if he is here alone. 

When he draws back Julius follows. Fumbling. Stumbling. Completing the motion anyway; his knees to either side of Simon's thighs. 

Lips against Simon's neck say _"please."_

Julius believes in what he is asking for: an answer to a question where skin is only the language. 

_Tell me you don't want me to suffer._

Pain, yes, always, whether alive or undead, pain is always a part of it, but, 

_Tell me that you don't hate me_

Just that. Not asking for more than that.

Simon runs clawed hands down Julius's sides. Settles them low at the base of the man's spine. He pulls him close enough to feel the faint suggestion of a weak erection pressing against his own abdomen. Julius squirms. Ashamed. Chasing the contact away. 

Simon lets his hands fall lower. Grips.

_A game._

_A parody._

But Julius throws himself at the line between real and make-believe as if he intends to break it. Or break himself in the attempt. Whichever comes first.

A few moments later the man's faded jeans are a shredded wreck. Simon presses into him and Julius moves, too soon and too fast, fucking himself open on the fingers of his executioner. Then he's fumbling at Simon's belt. 

Simon obliges him. Why not? Julius's eyes are closed when he takes Simon's cock in hand and guides himself down onto it. Simon looks up at him. Fascinated. Fixated. Julius bites his lip. He doesn't seem to notice that he's broken skin.

One long moment later and he's fully seated. Then he moves. 

There is something frantic and desperate in the drive of Julius's hips, a violence, his arms encircling Simon's shoulders for support and his hands clasped hard. His head is turned into Simon's neck. He's gasping, ragged breaths feeding lungs which should not require air. 

The pleasure might be largely psychological, remembered as much as felt, but the pain is real. Simon sees it in Julius's face but still the man does not stop. Won't. Can't.

_Enough._

Simon takes over, grasping Julius's hips and exerting pressure until he is forced to slow and then to stop altogether. Julius sobs, fighting the grip, but Simon does not miss the other reaction-- the uptick in a sluggish, uncertain heartbeat or the corresponding answer translated to the man's cock. 

He grinds up slowly. Carefully. Relishes the full-body shudder than answers him. His teeth ache, called by the blatant show of vulnerability, hungry to break bared skin.

_No._

Can't risk it. Can't risk losing himself for good. 

He has to-

_Control._

_Focus._

He watches Julius, forcing his gaze to remain clear and cold and calculating. 

He pulls out, ignoring Julius's choked-off noise of protest and pain, and pushes him down onto the mattress, turning him face-down. He guides himself back inside. Julius grunts. Pushes back against him. Thrusts down to slide his cock against the mattress: fully hard now and looking for relief. 

Simon grips his hips and, still seated inside of him, pulls him up. Away. Holds him out of contact, hard cock hanging helpless in the air, and keeps him there, refusing to let him down anything except paw uselessly at the smooth surface of the bed and passively _take._

Simon looks down at him. He feels the mask sliding away from his face. He doesn't need it anymore. Julius can't see him. He can only feel him, and Simon knows he feels different-- different from the vampiress and her ghoul.

Julius whimpers. 

Simon smiles. He fucks Julius slowly. Lazily. Watches the helpless sway of his back. Listens. 

Every wordless, broken sound the man makes becomes a new addiction. 

_"So good,"_ he murmurs while Julius sobs, _"So perfect."_

He knows he's broken the man long before he ends it, wrapping a hand around the man's cock and pulling him off in long, steady strokes. 

He bites him then. Can't help it. He tastes the blood which is both kine and kin, heady and electric with arousal as Julius comes. 

Julius leans into him, after, burrowing into his grip as if his life depends on it. Not gripping, only pressing so close that it's hard to tell where his skin ends and Simon's begins.

For Simon, nearly a lifetime away from any prolonged human contact which wasn't strictly utilitarianly sexual, the experience is...

...not unpleasant. 

He draws Julius close. Watches him fall into that state of sleeplike unconsciousness which is so peculiarly human. 

And he knows that Julius expects him to be merciful. 

He knows that Julius does not expect to wake up.

**\- - - [x] {x} [x] - - -**

Simon places the items he'll need on the sink. A mug, a knife...

He lifts the last thing, turning it in search of a soft place to cut. 

He watches his blood dripping into the container and listens to the silence. Here, in the alcove, the sounds from the street are distant. Muted. There's no more rain. No constant dripping from the sink, either. 

But there is... something. He looks into the room. Julius lies quiet. He's far from exorcised but tonight, maybe, his demons are as exhausted as he is. 

Simon turns back to the alcove. His eye is drawn to the drain. 

He hears it again.

Simon steps closer, staring into the basin. His hands grip the counter. Instinctive. Defensive. He keeps tight hold as he leans forward.

There. Again. A hiccuping cough: human. Upset. A child's angry sobs echo through the pipes, rising towards him.

The sound reaches out. Draws him in. Down. 

He tries to step back, shutting down his senses, but the sound is already inside him. Inhaled like a toxin. Spreading. 

When he finally manages to push himself away from the sink it is only to find his back pressed against a surface which shouldn't be there. The walls close in around him. He strikes out. Tries to break them. All he gains are splinters in hands which suddenly feel both entirely wrong and horribly familiar. Too small. Too weak. 

He knows where he is. He knows when he is. 

The heavy wardrobe with the locking door and no light and no... 

The book. That was what-- no, not what started it... it had already begun-- but it was the incident which he remembered most sharply. 

The sound of a vacuum cleaner running through distant dark shelves while he prowled, bored. He took one of the books home, shoved deep into the bottom of his pack. Not deep enough. She found it. 

And. 

_"See for yourself,"_ she'd said, hateful and derisive when she shut the door.

_"Because I love you,"_ she'd say later, when she opened it, _"For your own good,"_ she'd say. 

_Liar, liar, liar._

But the man in the office said the same thing. Said that children like Simon were the liars. That they couldn't help it. That they couldn't love or be loved, that they needed to broken down and _taught_ or else they'd grow up to be monsters. 

_"Are you sorry?"_ asks the monster when she finally opens the door.

Simon nods. He can't see her. It's too bright outside. The light hurts.

_"I'm doing this because I love you."_

He says nothing. 

_"Do you love me, Simon?"_ Her voice has gone sweet and coaxing like a baited hook. There's only once answer that keeps the door open. 

_"Yes,"_ he lies. 

_"Yes what?"_ Sharp. Cold. Snapping like a whip so that he flinches.

No. _No._ Because that word isn't hers, it isn't, it belongs to a different woman. A woman who knew what it meant. 

But he's so tired. So thirsty. 

Deep inside his monster rages, screaming, but he doesn't let it out. He pushes it down, down, _down_.

_"Yes mama,"_ he whispers, and the wardrobe fades away. 

Simon looks down at a handful of bleeding cuts. Looks up at the fragments of the mug, now lying shattered in the sink. 

He lifts a hand to touch his mask, the one that Julius thinks is beautiful. He feels the monster stirring behind it. In his mind. In his blood. 

He thinks about what it might be like to have those monsters looking back at him from Julius's eyes.

_"Do you want to be alone?"_ the man in the office asks him, self-righteous while Simon fights and cries, _"Do you want to be alone with only yourself? Forever?"_

"Simon?" Julius calls from the bed, and Simon wants to break everything. 

...Everything else.

**\- - - [x] {x} [x] - - -**

Simon slams his fist against the ticket machine. It continues to beep and blink at him. Mocking.

Around him on the crowded platform, a few heads turn to stare. 

"Let me," says Julius, stirring from the stupor which hasn't left him since...

Simon pushes the memory aside. 

Julius is smiling slightly. The expression is tired but real. He reaches for the machine and taps at the keys. Then Julius reaches wrong, his finger extended confidently towards a future that can't happen.

Simon catches his hand. Presses his finger home against the world's loneliest number. 

The machine clicks, spitting out a single ticket. Julius looks at it. He's blinking away the daze, now. Comprehending. 

Simon drops the pack at his feet. It lands with a hollow thud. 

The approaching train is a distant vibration. Then it's an approaching roar. Simon reaches around the back of Julius's head and draws the sweater's deep hood up, over the short-cropped hair to overhang his face. Unnecessary for now, but the sun will rise long before the train reaches San Diego.

Julius isn't ready for that sun. 

Not yet. 

Maybe not ever. 

Simon isn't sure if that impossible thread, the one leading to the day where Julius someday stands unaffected by the evening sunlight, still exists. He only knows that it does not exist anywhere in Los Angeles. 

Julius shakes his head, expression twisted in a reflexive snarl which isn't his. Not entirely. Simon can recognize his own response to abandonment. But Julius's is there, too, in the rapidly blinking eyes and the stark, lost look of another betrayal. 

Simon wipes the blood away before anyone else can see. He curls his stained fingers into the palm of his hand. 

The train arrives. Julius doesn't move. 

Simon picks up the backpack and shoves it against Julius's chest hard enough to push the man back a step. Then, finally, Julius moves. 

He takes the pack. Turns: cutting away sharply from Simon. Leaving. 

Won't _be_ left. Not this time. 

The train's doors slide shut behind him. 

Simon watches the train depart. He thinks that, just for a moment, the train's fading headlight looks more golden than white. 

The ability to forget is a god's most twisted gift. Simon thinks _Julius._  
And hears the future asking _"Who?"_

He stands on the rapidly clearing platform. When he it is nearly empty he finally opens his hand and looks down at his red-tinged fingertips. 

Then he lifts them to his lips for a final taste. 

It hurts-- the sudden connection to a departing presence dragging at his soul, threatening to tear it. 

Simon doesn't mind. 

He knew it would. 

The last of the departing commuters move more quickly, shying away from the man who stands laughing on the platform.

A few contact security, but he is gone before the officer arrives.


End file.
